Unemployed Watercooler Fridge Buzz Commiseration, Alienation and Mental Anti-Stagnation Society (DNRIYHM)

I know the short answer is "get a life, then you won't care so much about this stupid shit."

But the thing is, as an ~artist~ (cue sound of violins playing and jack up the pretentiousness) my work p much *is* much life.

And yes, I know that lots of people don't consider fanfic to be art but I don't draw any difference between any of the things I do, drawing, writing, songwriting, fanfic, whatever. It all comes from the same place.

The damn shame of it is, is that all (or, nearly all) crit/reviewing of any kind of art/production is 'performed' by someone who got it/in free.

I liked John Lydon's comment to some music journalist who was 'discussing' why he was playing Sex Pistols songs during his PIL gigs, "Did you get in to the gig free? Yeah? You know, that's fine, that's OK, just don't come on like you're my employer!"

No, that's completely different. When someone is reviewing a gig, for the media, they are doing a job. They are paid for the service, that's fair enough. They are paid for their opinion, and they should write their considered opinion.

When someone does a free review (they chose to hit that "review" button and use their time, for free, to give their opinion) of a free piece of art, it's like... you chose, to spend your time and effort - just to be nasty to someone? Why?

(Actually, what would make me feel better would probably be to sign up with a fake name, find their shitty stories, and go through correcting their work like a total grammar pedant. But that would *really* be a waste of time.)

((What I am going to do is get off the internet, buy bananas for breakfast, and spend today drawing, in the style of Van Dyke, because I was reminded of how much I love him. My early sketchbooks are full of copies of his self portraits, looking very fey and Cavalier.))

I would also help if I could spell Van DYCK which I clearly can't.

He was such a honey.

http://www.studio-international.co.uk/studio-images/rubens-van-dyck10/RVD410-01-b.jpg

Fuck this, seriously. Exacerbated by PMT and sleep deprivation, I know.

um, maybe because they want to be that guy.

The one that gets paid to provide their opinion.

I think the distinction is that if you are putting your art up saying "pay me (or, someone) for this", then it 'invites' someone to say "no, it is not worth it"

Whereas if someone is doing it purely for the pleasure of it, it is rude to have someone else crapping on it purely because they think they can be Mr Book Reviewer.

(xposts, sorry took ages to think/type that.)

Yeah, that's almost there, but I don't think they're looking for a job as a reviewer - or if they are, they're seriously looking in the wrong place.

It's just like... yeah, I know there are two attitudes towards "Music Criticism."

There's a whole school of thought which is all, "if you're going to spend £10 on an album or a book or whatever, here's a guide to tell you whether it's worth buying." Which is what 90% of published music criticism really is, in a nutshell. (The other 10% being the lifestyle journalism which is all, "If you want to seem like X kind of a person, listen to X music.") In which case, harsh or negative reviews are totally part of the job, and to be expected. It actually takes some talent to review a record in this style, in a way that says "I can't stand this record, but if this description appeals to you, go ahead and blow your £10."

Obviously, there's the other school of criticism which is "OMG, I just love this artist SO SO MUCH, you need to hear this, you need to have this in your life, because this piece of art will just improve your life immeasurably in every way and make you as happy as I feel, when experiencing this art!" Which I obviously, personally love, because I like stupid things like passion and enthusiasm.

But the downside to that school of criticism is that kind of Whiney-Dom axis which is "I hate this so much that everyone who likes it is stupid and I aim to dislike it as actively as possible and make people hate themselves for liking it that they end up hating it as much as I do."

Which really makes me want to stab the world in the fucking eyeballs.

I don't actually think that any of these motivations were the motivations of the two bad reviews I just got, though, I honestly think they really just thought I needed to get taken down a peg.

You say they also 'write', are they competing for the same audience as you?

It's an amateur site! It's not like there's anything to compete for!

Like, what, did my story get more views or more reviews than theirs? Even I'm not that petty.

Just.

I had a bit of a moan about it, but I feel awful for feeling butthurt.

Wait, I know. I am the only writer to have used the word "santorum" in a Cheesecake. I win at ~lyfe~.

I think that one of the things that's going on is that fandom in general (not just RH fandom but the whole concept of fandom as this overarching thing) has changed a lot in the past decade or so. Original female characters as leads in fic are considered unfashionable and gauche now, as something that only old school authors or Twilight fans might do. It's weird, because as you say it all comes out of wish fulfillment, but for some reason that specific form of wish fulfillment is currently looked down upon.

No, trust me, female leads looked down on, back in 1995 when I first started publishing fan fiction on the web. They were looked down on the early 00s when I gave up and stopped writing fanfic. They were looked down on in 2007/8 when I started writing fanfic again. It is one of the near universals of fan fiction, for as long as I've been involved in fan fiction, that among many, many people, writing female leads is considered bad, awful, hated, and no matter how well developed the character is, will be derided as a "MarySue" or written off as a self insert. And it does not matter if the character *is* actually a MarySue or a self insert, it is actually the femaleness of the character that is so bad and hated. It's the same thinly disguised female loathing of femaleness that prompts female fans to specify "but I'm a ~real fan~ not - like those groupies!"

It is an attitude in fan fiction that I hate as much as I generally love the whole concept of fan fiction itself, and I have no time for it, no matter who it's coming from.

And when people talk about "wish fulfillment" and self inserts and JonnySues - my god. Everybody has their thing in any fandom that they hate. What I really particularly hate is those "Schoolboy Radiohead" stories that are set at a school which is not recognisable as *any* English boarding school, let alone Abingdon, but very clearly stinks of the suburban American high school where *that* particular writer happens to go, with all all her mates thinly disguised - *that* drives me up the fucking wall. But you know what? I recognise that's what many, many people, especially teenage girls, love in their fan fiction and *I* don't feel the need to go and leave snotty little comments on their stories telling them how I don't like them.

tl;dr: woman-hating women, active in your fandom since whenever.

I mean, the whole reason that E-Me! *featured* three central female leads in its headline stories was to counteract the endless parade of "thou shalt never write women" slash-centric fan fiction.

Whenever I spend any serious amount of time in fan fiction fandom, I come to the conclusion that I love fan fiction, but although I find slash titillating as a concept, I really fucking hate the weirdly inherent misogyny of many of its supporters.

I think it's slightly more complicated than that, because prominent original characters in general are regarded with a certain amount of suspicion or resentment, regardless of their gender and regardless of whether the fic is slash/femslash/het/gen. There's definitely a huge aspect of "eww, girls!" to the general attitude towards OFCs, but I think there's something else going on, though I'm not sure what motivates it.

It's inherent in pop culture at large - there's a reason that so many movies - AND SO MANY BANDS - fail the Bechdel test. Because they are programmed to.

How else do you get female characters into a narrative that has none? You either queer up the male characters and make slash, or you invent original characters and make MarySues.

I mean, I know *why* original characters have a bad rep, because of a million and one PotterSues clogging up the fanosphere. But that's a question of bad writing, not an inherent flaw in original characters. It is completely ironic, given how many other people - the vast majority of people who commented or emailed, actually - told me how much they had become attached to Fiona (the original character) and "Ruth" (the semi-canonical/semi-original) So much so that when I made the choice to end the story in the middle, rather than let it run on to the bit were the two original (female) characters' stories kind of started to dominate over the pop star - people actually started commenting and emailing me and asking me to finish it because they wanted to know how things worked out between the 3 central characters.

So, for once, I actually don't think I'm seeing things when I say, this was not actually a problem with original characters, this was a problem with a story dominated by *female* characters.

And given the ending of the story, it was actually really *ironic* that the snippy commenter said "wish fulfillment" - like, uuuhhh...

Anyway, this is kind of swinging too far from the political to the personal. I don't think it's any mystery why people dislike original characters, but I also don't think it's any mystery why some writers feel the *need* to insert (female) original characters. I get really tired of reading all-male world narratives all the time. Including even my beloved slash.

I know this is bitching about a bad review and blaming sexism, which is bad form, really.

But it's like... she has the right to hate my story. She has the right to hate all my characters and everything about the story. But when your complaint about a story is that it's "just wish fulfillment" because it's Het, while somehow STUFF THAT IS EQUALLY WISH FULFILLMENT but is all-male is somehow ... not?

I'm sick of all male worlds and all male narratives. I will disrupt them in any way possible.

I wish ILX came with a delete post button like every other forum in the universe, but I suppose if it did, I would have a post count of, like, 3 posts. :-(

Multiple x-posts (not read most of the thread).

If you like Mabey's Beechcombings, I'd also recommend Deakin's Wildwood and Notes from Walnut Tree Farm.

Some mentions here:

The Nature Reader

I'm sick of all male worlds and all male narratives. I will disrupt them in any way possible.

bring it

but be understanding

Well now several other regulars have said they thought it was unnecessary, she's being all "oh well I didn't think it was negative."

Oh well. Yeah and I don't think you're being disingenuous or even stupid, just incredibly insensitive.

But I am filled with anger and unhappy and PMT today so I will just avoid everything.

Why, if the internet is so boring and hateful, can't I ever seem to get off it?

ok. now i'm confused.
i thought WCC = Masonic Boom.

One is me on my iPhone which tends to be cheerful & playful (& full of spelling errors) coz I'm out & about, the other tends to be me on my desktop sat in my bedroom navelgazing and hating life. Sorry for the confusion.

ahh ! having no such gadgets, such a situation would never have occurred to me.

Americans be SPLAININ' P-Celtic to me. My a gar.

::rolls eyes::

Pur skwith ov, Ny wrav vy mos dhe yeth an werin, haneth. Gav dhymm.

You're probably not even reading this any more, Melissa, but... now it seems that they're just not approving updates to my story any more. Like, it had been sitting in the approval queue for several days now, and I thought that someone had gone on holiday (that's what happened before, the last time that happened) but now other stories are getting approved ahead of me.

And no one actually bothered getting in contact with me, to explain why (is it because of this one person who thought I was being *mean* about other stories I was actually praising, despite the fact that I explained exactly what I meant, and no one else who read the story thought I was?) or anything like that, it's just.... nothing.

I'm so bad tempered and insomniac and PMT right now that any little thing is going to set me off crying, but this is just really pissing me off.

I hate everything, and everyone right now. Why does everything have to be so damned difficult? I know that everyone thinks I'm awkward and horrible and a pain in the arse, and they usually wish I would just go away, but why does it have to be so fraught, the one thing that was bringing me any pleasure?

Everything i do turns to shit. Always.

I really need to put some kind of time-lock on my modem so I can't get on the internet at 4am when I'm feeling like that. It's never as bad the next morning, and it's embarrassing to see your midnight paranoia all out there.

Maybe they're going in reverse chronological order? It's all a bit haphazard there, things can get missed. I don't think that many people have access to the approval queue so things can get a bit backed up if someone's not on top of it all. I very much doubt that your story has been deemed unacceptable or anything.

Yeah some of the other girls said they were waiting on updates for their stories, too.

I got totally paranoid bcz one of the admins said that my latest story was "making fun of" otter stories when that was the last thing I was doing, I was actually showing huge amounts of affection + love for fan fiction in general and those authors in particular but expressed through the mouth of a sarcastic Brit.

But it's really impossible for me to be objective about stuff like that when it's 4am and I'm in the grips of the black dog and I go into that kind of flailing panic of paranoia.

I hate my brain, I hate what it does to me sometimes.

Other stories not otter stories.

Jonny as an otter would be great, though. Ha!

Eep. So I have a job interview next week. Apparently.

Oh paper it looks like a great match but oh boy I'm not sure I'm prepared to start actually going for this again.

Excellent! Plus!

It'd mean going back to Financial Services, too, when I was pretty keen to stay on the Medical side of data but, argh.

Does anyone know any good SQL tests online? I took one as practice but I got 100% (on 15 questions) in like 2 and a half minutes so I think I need a harder test. (What's the difference between WHERE and HAVING? Come on! Too easy.)

Great news! I don't know of any hard SQL tests though, sorry.

I've just knocked off work for the day, it is... nearly half past midnight, and I'm not nearly done with the doings that need doing, but my brain has kind of gone crunch so y'know, sooner or later you have to try and switch off. But how? I'm so wired now my jaw feels like it's on fire and my eyes are trying to crawl out of the backs of my eye sockets and hide in my brain-space.

k are we both learning sql to get out of the medical data field

cause that would be weird

Probably the best way to test yourself on SQL is to just do it. Install MySQL and get a decent book and go to town. I'm mostly self-taught from constantly practicing at my last job amidst my prescribed tasks. It's kinda sad how proficient I am, because I cannot imagine ever wanting to do anything with that knowledge again.

Ah, I did a SQL 'test' that one company had sent me the link for, I thought "ar, nae bother" and just went for it. The required pass mark was 85% and I got 80%, so that was the end of that one. (and I'm good at the SQL). should have 'revised' or at the very least had google open on another tab.

That's the thing, the actual 'quality' tests are srsly guarded off.

LOL, no, I'm not learning SQL, I've been a SQL programmer for like 10 years. I just have to take a stupid test to prove that I can do it, and I get stupidly nervous about tests. I aced the last official one I took, and that was before another 3 years of experience (and a SQL admin course) so I don't know what I'm worried about.

And I want to *stay* in medical data, I don't want to go back to Financial Services. I hate the Finance world.

Not least because I've spent too many nights like Zora, still working when it's nearly midnight.

I was wondering where you'd been, girl, but I figured you were extra busy with work.

My experiences with the Financial World have been either it's late nights etcet, or it's 'almost nothing to do'...

Another nibble for a job in a rural Oxfordshire town with CASTLES and LUMPS and looks tweely pretty as fuck so bad I want to go and live in a gingerbread and marzipan cottage there. But alas, it looks far too developer-y for me and not reporting oriented. Specialisation, I hate you so much. It's like all this stuff seems exactly the same to headhunters when they see "SQL" but you have to read between the lines of a job description.

I've no doubt that I could do it, if placed in front of the tools, it's just that I have very little experience in doing it, so convincing someone to let you do it is tough.

POCKET SIZED DRONEROCK BOY

http://cache.krop.com/stevekeros-4f4a830fff4b65.jpg

I mean, I know. Perspective and all, but he *is* tiny. Squeeee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCsn_MUHTOs

^^^^^droppin' hints

Job interview today. First one in I don't know how long, like I've forgotten how to do them.

Been told I have to take a SQL test, so I boned up on code, then got told yesterday it will be "mostly on theory" like WTF is the "theory" or SQL? Are these the things I missed going to art school instead of doing a computer science degree?

Anyway I don't even know why I'm posting on this thread, it's like tumbleweed and I should accept it.

Relational theory maybe? I dunno, I didn't do computer science either.

Entity Integrity? WTF is Entity Integrity?

And all that 1st form, 2nd form, 3rd form normal? I have no idea.

It was a super hard test, and every time I felt confident, it had an algorithm to make the questions harder if you got them right. Fiendish.

Anyway I was totally bummed coz I only got an 85 on the test, but they were really impressed with that anyway.

We shall see.

Yeah normal forms is relational theory stuff. I did look up all that stuff when I was looking to leave my last job, although my new job doesn't really involve much hardcore SQL at all. In fact it involves almost no SQL because most of the database access is handled (or obfuscated as it seems to me at the moment) via an ORM.

I was reading a book called SQL and Relational Theory that goes into those concepts. Some of it is only really useful on an academic basis, like having any nullable columns at all diverges from the relational model and is wrong. Try doing that in any database I've ever worked in will leave you in over-normalisation hell very quickly.

I read up on all that stuff when I was learning database design, decided I would build everything to 3nf, then forgot all about it. I guess it's all just second nature now - I would probably have failed yr test.

I don't know that I ever learned any of that stuff but it just kind of came instinctively through having a balance between well stored data and easily inputtable and accessible data and not having nightmare queries.

Either way, I've been called back for a second interview and the CEO wants to meet me (apparently this is standard for this company tho still nerve-wracking) so, um, yay me?

I guess it's just weird coz I'm realising how much my confidence was ripped to shreds by the stuff that went down at my last job, but coming back to realise that my skills are highly desirable to some companies, and the personality quirks that some places see as negative, others see as major selling points?

yay you!